No pressure.
Just company.
ChapterSixty-Four
DeadStrings:Are you there?
StringTheory27:Yep.Just finished with my chores for the day.Sunday is the best day for cleaning and preparing for the new week.
DeadStrings:We have to prepare for the new week?
StringTheory27:I ...I do.My best friend thinks I’m just bored.She says that if I had a life, I wouldn’t be looking for things to do during the day that’s meant to be for rest.
DeadStrings:I take it your friend is resting.
StringTheory27:Or partying.She left on Thursday with a friend, and I haven’t heard from her since.
DeadStrings:Should you check on her?
StringTheory27:I did, and she said: We’re taking the weekend off.One of the guys she was with cut the conversation, telling me to go get laid.The nerve.
DeadStrings:Does she know you’re going through a breakup?
StringTheory27:No, but when I tell her she’s going to wanna celebrate.She hated my ex.She called him perfect and not in a nice way.
DeadStrings:Was he perfect?
StringTheory27:I ...maybe on paper.He was that reliable guy who wouldn’t hurt you.
DeadStrings:Safe?
StringTheory27:Exactly.Have you ever dated a safe girl?
DeadStrings:I didn’t date after I broke up with my ...she was everything, you know?
StringTheory27:Never dated?
DeadStrings:Nope.I fucked around, but that was the extent of it.I love her too much to know that I can’t ever fall that way again.What about you?
StringTheory27:I loved someone like that, but I did try to date after him.I got crushed.Not because I was in love, but because I realized I was used by every man I went out with.Tragic, really.
DeadStrings:Is this why you’re trying to read self-help books?
StringTheory27:Yep.I bought a new one today.“How to Stop Loving Your Ex and Start Loving Yourself.”Cheesy title, but the first chapter slapped me across the face—in a good way.Said something like, “The people who leave aren’t always villains.But that doesn’t mean they get to take up space in your head forever.”I dog-eared that one.
DeadStrings:Sounds like it hit a nerve.
StringTheory27:More like a truth I’ve been avoiding.I keep trying to fix myself so I can be “better next time,” but maybe there’s no next time.Perhaps it’s just me learning to like being alone and not treating it like a punishment.
DeadStrings:You think being alone is the same as being lonely?
StringTheory27:Not always.But sometimes.For example, when I make tea, I realize I’m the only one drinking it.Or when I hear a joke and my first instinct is to tell someone, I realize that there’s no one by my side to listen to it.
DeadStrings:That feeling never really goes away.Even if you move on.Wanting to reach out and say ‘hey, look what I just read’ or ‘listen to this new song.’
StringTheory27:That’s what scares me.What if we never stop loving the people who wrecked us?What if the wreckage becomes part of who we are?
DeadStrings:Maybe it does.Maybe you just build around it?
